Ala

To be born in flight,
Composed of wings,
Letters whirling in orbit,
Its own echo and rhyme
Flying through time,
Between heart and mind,
Language and landscape,
At the edge of a cliff,
Off the tip of the tongue,
Like a wafer of light,
The first spring wing
Doubles to find night,
Closes to be invisible,
To make art visible
And peace inevitable.
Poetry mirrors its flight.

Salvatore Alas

Alas reincarnation.
Alas eternity, paradise,
Being one with the all,
Waiting for a messiah,
Interrupted at rest.
Alas the Atman—I disown you.
Alas animal vibrations,
Consciousness, an afterlife.
Alas empirical evidence,
Philosophy and history.
Alas food and alamodality,
Friends and community.
Alas the wound not festering,
Recovering, beating odds.
Alas axioms and equality–
Justice, charity and mercy.
Alas music and dance,
Peace and progress,
Alas hope and truth,
Children and happiness,
Alas love, laughter and life.
At last, alas creation.

Salvatore Alalia

His mutism is metaphorical.
His decreased receptive language
Created the condition
For poetic intervention.

Even though his teachers
Suggested he had speech delay,
He was hearing the words
In the spaces between them,
Learning the structure of things unseen.

He was born into a second language
Like a guitar string is changed
And must hurry to catch the tune.
If he is not always fluent
It is because he is like a family
Of Italian poets all speaking at once.

Salvatore Marsala

The wine of intoxication is like his moon,
His sun and moon and cup of light.
Transparent gold pours from his mind.
He holds out his hand and grapes appear.
He casts the image of no image. Sol Invictus.
An old man appears out of a young man.
The young man goes back to the vineyard.
No one knows what becomes of the old man.
The process, like wine, is in perpetuum.
Leafy vines join his body to the earth.
When it’s time to burn the wood
Clouds glow about his head like sunset.